Ganymede81
First Post
In my current 5e adventure, we used a large stash of gold in order to hire a company of dwarven mercenaries to defend a town that was going to be raided by goblinoids.
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D&D 5E In fifth-edition D&D, what is gold for?
- Thread starter CapnZapp
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lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
I apologize for not being more clear. I wasn't trying to argue that specific published settings universally have fundamental magic item economies. Individual tables interpret published settings wildly differently, and many tables use partially- or fully- homebrew settings anyway. My point was that if, at a particular table, a given setting (published or homebrew) was seen to include a magic item economy, then there are continuity problems when trying to use that setting in a new edition that (in that table's opinion) lacks adequate mechanics to support such an economy.
For example, if a given table's experience with FR included a magic item economy (maybe they were playing in 3.5 days, or were playing in Baldur's Gate FR, or otherwise happened to commoditize magic items), there are continuity issues when that group wants to continue playing FR in 5e if that table finds the newer edition's mechanics inadequate. Even if they changed to an FR-clone (to recreate the feel of the setting with different story content), there would still be similar problems.
The problem is much less severe with mechanics changes that aren't a visible part of a setting at a particular table (e.g. grapple rules).
You're welcome! Glad I could be of assistance.
Jester David
Hero
Magic item economies are reflected in the settings (or rather, in the Realms and Eberron) following 3e because they were in the game. The settings changed to accommodate the new place of magic in the rules.
And now it's changing back.
It's not a huge problem for the Realms. The Sundering and restoration of the Weave are a good excuse for depowering magical items from 4e. (And the canon of the Realms even has the Spellplague rendering many magical items nonfunctional). Plus in 4e, low and middle level magic items were continually reduced to residuum and used to enchant higher level items. So the many mid-level magic items of 3e were destroyed to empower legendary items currently in possession of epic adventurers.
It's funkier for Eberron, but that was always meant to be minor magic items. Everyday items. The mundane stuff of that setting doesn't affect adventurers, so the included magic item crafting rules are sufficient, as is the existing magic item shopping rules. The DCs for finding items are just lowered.
But it can't just create everything all at once. No edition has ever had a 100% conversion rate. (Okay… maybe OD&D to 1st Edition.)
Where was Moon Magic for Dragonlance in 4e? Where was Dark Sun defiling in 3e? How about races like muls, kender, half-giants, etc? The divine mandate from Birthright. Dragon PCs from Council of Wyrms. Immortals from Mystara.
New editions should *try* to offer mechanical support for past editions, but they can't include everything for every setting ever published.
I'm a Dragonlance and Ravenloft fan. Apart from Barovia/Strahd, neither have seen any real love in 5e/4e, and only 3rd Party support in 3rd. That's not idea, but that's life.
And making support for those settings is easy as it's additive: new classes/ races/ monsters.
In contrast, the magic item economics is a huge rules revision. It's a crazy amount of work to replace rules that are already in the game and work for most people's campaigns. The cost/reward benefit is not high compared to making new options.
When 5e has spellscars and dragonmarks, defiling and moon magic, devas and shardminds, psionics and the artificer, Ghostwalk and Council of Wyrms then maybe WotC can look at completely revising the magic item economy.
I disagree. It's the exact same thing. The DM says "this is the rules we're using". There's not something magical about official rules that make them easier to accept. A optional rule added to a game is still a change and correction of mental rule knowledge, regardless of the source.
And unless the players in question have read the entire DMG and have memorized the rules, there's no real difference at the table between a house rule and an optional rule.
If DMs are lacking trust at the table, any new rules will be greeted with hesitation regardless of the source. If the DM is not trusted at the table, are economics in the game world really the largest concern?
If it were as difficult as you make it sound, there would be no house rules used ever. But, honestly, in my 25+ years of gaming, I've never seen a non-Organized Play table NOT use house rules to some degree.
Yes, making a change for the worst causes more disatisfaction. However, your example only has two examples: no change and a change for the worse. Your thought experiment lacks a control.
For it to accurately reflect the desire for new rules you need a third scenario: new official grappling rules. So you have the control (no new rules), official new rules, and homebrew new rules. All the grappling rules are equally awful, the variable in this case is the homebrew vs official.
I posit that both tables with the new rules would be equally dissatisfied because a change was made, seemingly for the worse.
The solution: don't make a changes that are more negative than positive. Don't make awful rules.
That's iffy.
In a long running crunchy game like 3e/Pathfinder, a house rule that tries and fails to fix a problem is worse than leaving the rule alone. Since it means learning a new rule and introduces confusion. The devil you know and such. (Or the grass being greener. Some adage.)
Plus the complexities and interconnectivity of the rules made small changes ripple outward.
5e is much more rules light and people have been playing it a far shorter time, so it's a little easier shifting the rules. The game is much more accepting of house rules, with small changes being more confined and having less side effects.
Ahrimon
Bourbon and Dice
Whenever I hear the argument that published rules are automatically better or more accepted than house rules I always come back to this movie.
Caliburn101
Explorer
I will PM you...
Tony Vargas
Legend
Ironically - but not surprisingly, since they're so much bigger business than RPGs - the definition /was/ lifted from the gaming industry. It works very well for more complex computer games and card games, but simpler card, video, & especially, board games, can often get by with mere 'fairness' rather than the more rarefied 'balance' of that definition.
It is just ideal for RPGs, though.
Obviously doesn't fit the definition of balance in question. The three choices it offers are each viable, but they are not particularly meaningful (arguably there's some meaning in why each beats and is beaten by one of the others, but it's pretty minor)... and there are only 3 of them.
That's one thing I like about this definition, is that it highlights the total lack of balance in what are often held up as extremes of 'balance' when arguing in support of something imbalanced, or against even trying to achieve balance.
Eberron was created for 3e, so it didn't exactly 'change,' and the Realms have always been decidedly high-magic. Greyhawk, perhaps, changed and changed back in that sense.
Well, removing them, and replacing them with the more powerful/higher-impact items and spells of the traditional game.
A quick read-through of rituals might give you that idea - Disenchant Item is an heroic-level ritual, readily available, there's little use for a +2 weapon at Epic, etc - but the prices of items scaled so rapidly with level that rendering your old stuff for residuum (at 20% efficiency, remember) wouldn't net you enough for even one item of your new level. Unneeded items might get rendered for ritual components or consumables of your level, though - which fits the logic that much better, as they're just gone after they've been used.
But, really, 5e doesn't 'need' you to get rid of items in a setting. It just doesn't present items as an assumed part of the game. You can go ahead and include them, it won't make the job of running it that much harder.
Other 'new' editions weren't conceived (indeed, even justified) with the idea that they were for fans of each and every prior edition. Ironically, 5e is new & different in that regard.
There really is. You may not feel that it's right, but it's very much a thing. Players are more likely to be aware of PH rules than DMG rule than supplemental rules than 3pp rules than UA rules than DMsG rules. DM's too. No DM is going to be unaware that there are MCing & Feat rules available for 5e. There are also old-fashioned MCing rules available for 5e (somewhere out there, I'm virtually certain), but most 5e DMs likely never even peruse them, let alone give them serious consideration.
And, what 5e /is/, in the sense of it's public image, is what WotC makes of it. Everything else is peripheral. (And, just as importantly, what 5e /is/, in the sense of the experience at the table, is what the DM makes of it!)
But much greater hesitation if it's his own home-brew, and much less if it's a well-known WotC-produced option, surely.
D&D had so many awful rules for so long that they became part of its identity.
5e is /not/ simpler or rules-lite, no edition of D&D ever has been. But it has gone a long way towards fostering acceptance of DM authority to rule on and change the rules. The above digression about what rule option is more 'accepted' is a much more player-side perspective. A DM can impose what he wants - DMing isn't so easy, nor DM's so easy to find that he'll be bereft of players no matter how controversial he wants to get in that regard - a player, OTOH, who wants to use a particular option must shop around for a DM already using it, or, much harder, sell a DM on adopting it, that's where seeing the option as high in the officialdom hierarchy as possible becomes such a point of interest. (And, similarly, where taking the opposite position presents an opportunity to dictate to others how they play the game - or at least, if we're being optimistic, indulge in that impulse even if it's unlikely to work.)
Caliburn101
Explorer
The bit I highlighted. What does that even mean?
An over-supply of gold and under-supply of stuff to spend it on isn't a 'problem' caused by the rules, it is perhaps one engendered by the narrow modus operandi of APs.
The two should not be conflated and then labelled a game rules 'problem'. It is a limitation of this mode of play, which is practiced by the minority and I would contend is in no way seen as the 'official' way to run D&D 5th Edition - it is merely the official way to run APs.
Mixing this up creates a problem out of nothing.
Caliburn101
Explorer
Sacrilege!!!
You can't do that!
There isn't a rule for hiring mercenaries - so it's a PROBLEM!!!
But seriously, well done - your game did what any decent game does, uses common sense to fill in the unstated elements of a game without requiring a specific rule to do it for you.
Yay creativity!
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